Address by MASA Immediate Past President

Hello friends!
In the first installment, our founder President Mr. Akhtar Chauhan has told the story of the birth of this organization (our very own MASA) and the early days. Now in the second installment I am to continue the story further. At the first instance, I have to tell you that I was present from the very first meeting in which the MASA was formed and Akhtarbhai was requested to lead it. In the same meeting I was nominated the Vice President, and asked to shoulder the responsibility of supporting our president in all that he may decide to take up. Therefore for the next six years I was doing just what the president wanted me to do.
Those were turbulent times and many far reaching changes were happening in the field of architecture in general and architectural education in particular. The same judgment of the Supreme Court which had given birth to MASA, had also said that if all the private colleges of a particular field or trade could
come together and form an association, it could take up the task of admissions in that state.
Thus MASA decided to take up this onerous task upon itself. I was asked to take up this task and thus I became the first “competent authority” for the entrance test for architecture and the common admission process for architecture in Maharashtra. It was a stupendous task and I had not attempted anything so humongous in the past. But then nobody else amongst us had. So I decided to give it a go and with the unstinting support from the board as well as all the members, I could complete the task well in time and with not a single complaint from any quarter. Those were the heady days of working hard with your colleagues and being appreciated for the good work done.
This was done with great élan by the MASA board with heavy inputs from Akhtar as usual. In the mean time Akhtar had decided that it was time for him and his board to say good by and for a new board to take over the reins of MASA. It was at this juncture that I happened to be entrusted with the Presidentship of MASA after six years of shouldering the responsibilities of Vice Presidentship.
The council of Architecture came out with NATA (An entrance test for architecture for all of India). So the MASA was left with the common admission procedure for private colleges in
Maharashtra. This was also done highly competently by MASA. Along with this, other activities like encouraging good teachers as also the research were also taken up by me and my board. After a couple of years, the Maharashtra Govt. decided to take over the responsibility of the common admission process for all the colleges in Maharashtra (both govt. and private) and with 2015-16, the MASA has no say left in any matter dealing with admissions to architecture colleges in Maharashtra.
In the year 2017 it was time for me and my board to hand over the reins of MASA to the newly elected board after four long and tiring years, so also the time had come to go back to the drawing board and redefine the role of MASA.
And so, with the new board taking over from mine, the focus has shifted to academics and research activities. These activities were also being done earlier, but now they are the main activities of MASA. And so you are seeing this news letter and will be seeing the MASA publication of refereed Journal of research papers shortly.
Thus ends the second chapter in the long and historic saga of MASA. My best wishes to the new board and to all of you. May the saga of MASA never end and may MASA go from strength to strength.